The awful certainty of ‘rightness’

Something we hardly notice in ourselves, but see all too clearly in others, is the need to be right. Actually, it is one of those almost universal urges and operates at both the personal and collective levels. In other peoplethis can appear harmlessly annoying or silly, or often can be intensely frustrating. Or it can lead to dissonance, conflict, even wars.

As individuals and political parties or social or religious groups – or countries - we are completely certain that we know how things should be. Therefore, we conclude, anyone who has another view is wrong.

Here is a thought-provoking poem by the Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai. It is particularly poignant when we see and hear both sides of the Palestine- Israel conflict insisting that each is right, the other wrong.

And so the sufferingcontinues because of this awful certainty of ‘rightness’.

And so the hope for peace moves further and further away.

Yet, we can never let it die off. The antidote to this frozen certainty is 'doubts and loves', as the poet reminds us, which can lead us to question a one-sided, constructed or fed 'reality', and be used to 'dig up' and heal a trampled, hardened world.

The Place Where We Are Right

by Yehuda Amichai

From the place where we are rightFlowers will never growIn the spring.

The place where we are rightIs hard and trampledLike a yard.

But doubts and lovesDig up the worldLike a mole, a plow.And a whisper will be heard in the placeWhere the ruinedHouse once stood.